Thread by @unikunka

Guys, something insane happened to me today.

I am on a text chain with my teenage nieces and nephews along with my mom (their grandma) and today my mom asked them if they knew who Helen Keller was...

And their response was that Helen Keller was a fraud who didn't exist.

At first I thought they were trolling grandma, which is admittedly fun. But after awhile it was clear they weren't joking.

"How could someone be deaf and blind and learn how to write books?" My nephew admits she probably existed but was probably only one or the other.

I still thought I was getting trolled so I asked if I was getting trolled and they were adamant -- Helen Keller was a fraud.

So then I did some Googling to find out some relevant information to prove her existence and found this:

medium.com/@isabellalahou…

This is like a real thing. "Well how do you know she's real if you weren't there to see her?"

"Cause I've seen THE MIRACLE WORKER. Do you think Abraham Lincoln is real even though we didn't see him?"

Then they sent me an eye-rolling emojii.

They all believe Abe was real and did the things he did. They don't believe Helen could have been blind and deaf and did everything that she did.

"Cause the things he did were actually realistic."

They are sticking to their guns. They believe people around her "pumped her up" and wrote the book for her.

The do not believe in Helen Keller. And apparently 15 million others on TikTok feel the same way.

And we wonder what the cost of four years of "fake news" and "conspiracy theories" is...

We're all just one TikTok away from being erased from an entire generation.

Also -- my nieces and nephews are all bright and well-intentioned. This isn't from lack of education or empathy.

This is more about how group think can travel through social media like a virus until it suddenly just becomes the truth I think.

Thank you for all the responses about abelism to this post. This is 100% a teachable moment and I plan to do my part with 4 certain teenagers...

But also -- if you know a teenager -- I'd ask them about this sooner than later.

By far the most enlightening thing to happen in the last 2 hours are all the responses about abelism and how this is a microcosm of the challenges disabled people face every day.

I'm retweeting as many as I can into my timeline but keep them coming please.

Update - if a joke on TikTok (as apparently this "fraud" started) can poison young minds the thread about it going viral can change minds back...

Have had a discussion about abelism with my N&Ns and ordered @HabenGirma's book for them. Never too late to go down the right path.